Reflections on Quilting

My maternal grandmother was a sewist – she made quilts, she fixed things with her sewing machine and she was always using fabrics she had on hand, whether they were clothing or sheets.  She would sometimes buy fabrics but most of her sewing projects used items destined for the scrap bag.  I learned to sew clothes for my dolls, fix clothing, I even got patterns and made clothes for myself when I was in my 20s.  I started my first big bed size quilt when I was 19 and have made many quilts since.  I bought and received cotton fabrics for quilting when I was in college.  People often say “Oh, you sew – I brought you some fabric.”  So, for many, many years – I didn’t have to go buy more fabric.  

It wasn’t unit about five years ago that I started going into fabric stores again for the first time since college. My return to the commercial world of fabric and crafting was rocky: unbleached muslin rocketed from 99 cents to $9.99 per yard.  

Around the same time, in 2019, I learned about long-arm quilting from my manager at work, who mentioned that his neighbors ran a long-arm quilting business after finding out I made quilts. I had never heard of this before and was excited by the possibility of machines that facilitated top quilting to make it less of a neck-breaking chore.  A shop in San Mateo offered training and rents time on long arm machines – so I headed across the Bay to learn.  

That first shop visit in early 2022 was eye-opening. I discovered a massive wave of commodification and co-optation of the practice of quilting. Everything was “curated.” People bought designer fabrics packaged into “jelly rolls” and “layer cakes” (I’m still not sure what those are). “Fat quarters” came in coordinated collections blessed by some supposed color genius. When I showed a quilt I was working on—a gift for a friend—the shop workers (all elderly and white) sucked their teeth and said, “Tsk tsk – well, your friend will like it because you made it for her.” At the time, I didn’t realize this was a sales technique: make me feel insecure so I’d buy their curated kits and sign up for their “expert” classes.

That same commodified mindset shows up in quilt shows I’ve attended from 2022 through 2025. My first quilt show experience, back in 2011 on a cross-country motorcycle trip, was different—county fairs, small-town shows, quilts that varied in style, skill, and purpose. In contrast, competitive quilt shows today carry the same push toward conformity I first felt in that San Mateo shop. Perfectionism rules: precision piecing, perfectly straight quilting, designer-only fabrics (nothing from JoAnn’s, of course). Many quilts look like they rolled off a computer printer. Most seem to be sent to professional long-arm shops and quilted to within an inch of their lives. At a Fort Bragg show earlier this summer, quilts hung in front of windows, and I realized how much this over-quilting can damage the work—some looked like postage stamps, with daylight bleeding through the stitches.

Together, these experiences—both in the shop and at the shows—made clear how quilting has been broken into commodified specializations: designing the fabrics, picking out the “right” colors, pre-cutting the pieces, even outsourcing the assembly and quilting. It’s the capitalist drive to monetize what was once a legacy, family, community, and personal practice.

Today, I went to a talk at BAMPFA “Artists Conversation: Quilts as Legacy and Living Practice” (https://bampfa.org/event/quilts-legacy-and-living-practice) featuring Adia Millet, Basil Kincaid, and Diedrick Brackens.

Among the topics that the artists touched upon while presenting their work and responding to audience questions was the idea of liberation through creation.  Both Basil and Adia talked about incorporating materials from family, friends, and old clothing.  Adia featured a Dresden Plate block made by her grandmother at the center of a piece she embellished with found wild bird feathers.  Basil said that most of the quilts he makes, he keeps because they have family materials and are personal.  Basil said that he won’t commercialize black pain or family memories.  I also liked the idea that Diedrick raised about animism in his small fleet of looms – they all have a personality and creating something is a conversation.  He said “I might think that something is going to curve a certain way but the loom says – ‘try it like this instead’” and he might not do a certain type of subject matter on a certain loom.  

Listening to these artists inspired a reflection on what I value in the practice of quilting.  I find liberation in the imperfection, pushing the limits of all parts of the process:  my skill, the machine, the textiles, even how I’m feeling or the colors of the fabric.  It’s a story at a point in time – there are fabrics from my grandmother’s stash, or that I bought over 30 years ago in college, or which came to me through other surrendered caches.  

That visit to the San Mateo quilt shop in 2022 when the old white ladies (and one man) “tsk tsk’d” my quilt and showed me their curated, pre-cut jelly rolls and layer cakes – that was a sales technique.  The co-optation of quilting and commodification of quilting into separate areas of specialization -- designing the fabrics, picking out the colors that "go together," even cutting the pieces and providing assembly and top quilting services have really stood out to me, perhaps more because of my hiatus from fabric stores and quilting social media.  

These are typical outcomes of the capitalist drive to monetize what is a legacy, family, community and personal practice.  The result is to create insecurity and to foster a consumerist mentality:  many people end up acquiring so much material and tools that there's even a semi-humorous acronym:  "SABLE" stands for "Stash Beyond Life Expectancy." People spend more time acquiring, organizing and managing their sewing spaces than actually creating items.  This commodity fetishim creates alienation from the creative process and hyperindividualization that is, quite frankly, wasteful and not fun. The pefectionism results in quilts that are boring and don't really reflect anything personal which was part of the practice of quilting for many generations of quilters. 

After the BAMPFA artists left the stage, another attendee struck up conversation with me. She emphasized the consumerist nature of people who form the target demographic for the commodified quilt world: “A lot of those people aren’t making art – they are just doing paint-by-numbers.” The process of picking fabrics, choosing your colors, learning techniques and developing a vision are not part of what they are doing. “And,” she said, “That’s okay.”

That reminder of liberation in imperfection also brought to mind the final chapter of Patrick Bringley’s book, All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me which focuses on the exhibition of the quilts of Gee’s Bend. One quilter, Loretta Pettway (b. 1942), told Bringley she didn’t even like sewing—she made quilts because no one else could supply enough to keep her family warm. That honesty, that necessity, reminded me that art isn’t always about inspiration. Sometimes it’s about survival.

What I see in both the Gee’s Bend story and in today’s quilting world is the same contradiction that runs through textiles globally: abundance on one side, necessity on the other. Quilting doesn’t stand apart from the larger textile economy—it’s entangled with it. The commodification I saw in quilt shops and shows mirrors the same forces driving fast fashion, overproduction, and waste.

We live in a time of massive wealth and success, as well as increasing socioeconomic disparity and dysfunction around the distribution of that wealth. I’ve read that there is so much clothing already manufactured that we could clothe the next six or seven generations without creating a single new garment. The amounts of textiles dumped in developing countries is galling. Why should anyone buy new fabric or clothing?

Part of my creative practice is to avoid buying new fabric—while I do have some “purchased as new” fabrics in my stash, I spend a lot of time going to thrift stores and scanning online ads for people selling or surrendering their stashes. I save some for quilting and other fabrics for kennel quilts.

One of the artists in today’s BAMPFA discussion, Basil Kincaid, works in Ghana to recover fabrics that he uses for his large projects, and also to upcycle into quilted clothing. This is one small step in the right direction. But it’s not enough. We need to elevate upcycling and repair to the couture and luxury level, so that imperfection and “character” are seen as aspirational—so that people learn to desire difference and authenticity, instead of mass-produced homogeneity, as the new normal.

Upcycling needs to move beyond craft tables and artist studios and into the couture houses if imperfection is ever to be normalized as luxury. By redefining character as beauty, fashion can loosen its grip on homogeneity — and only when businesses value the planet over profit will we see a reduction in the massive amounts of waste that are driving global socioeconomic disparities.

REVIEW: Smitten: Romantic Obsession, the Neuroscience of Limerence, and How to Make Love Last by Tom Bellamy (2.5 stars)

I came to Smitten curious about the psychology of limerence — that intense, euphoric, often obsessive state that masquerades as love. While I don’t doubt limerence exists, this book offers more breadth than depth. It’s readable and occasionally insightful, but lacks original research and leans heavily on secondary sources. For a book that claims to explore the neuroscience of love, it feels more like pop psychology than rigorous analysis.

One of the book’s core issues is that it tries to do too much for too many audiences. Is it a basic primer on limerence? A neuroscience explainer? A self-help guide for people suffering from limerent obsession? It’s unclear. These goals could have been better served by splitting the material into separate books or at least distinct sections with more focus. As it stands, Smitten reads more like a collection of long blog posts than a cohesive, well-structured work.

Bellamy is clear that limerence is not a mental illness:

“Experiencing limerence is not a symptom of mental illness, a psychological wound or an emotional failing. For most limerents it is a normal part of the process of falling in love, albeit with a force that has a fierce and alarming power.” (Chapter 5)

He also addresses attachment theory, noting that while limerence is often associated with anxious attachment, it’s not exclusive to it:

“More than half of the population who do not have an anxious attachment style are limerents. But—and it is a big but!—eight out of ten people who have anxious attachments are limerents.” (Chapter 6)

Bellamy introduces a taxonomy of archetypes who supposedly attract limerent individuals — the damsel in distress, tortured soul, agent of chaos, bad boy/girl, the rock, the leader, the guru, the free spirit, the mysterious stranger. These are interesting sketches, but the framing implies intentional manipulation. In reality, these people may just be living out their own unresolved narratives. As I wrote in my notes: “Maybe they just have their own movie going.”

One of the few moments that rang true for me was in Chapter 14, where Bellamy writes:

“Limerence fades. Regardless of how spectacular the thrills are at the beginning of a relationship, expecting that euphoric connection to last more than a few months is unrealistic. Quite apart from how exhausting it would become, it doesn't make sense from an evolutionary perspective. Limerence is the drive to form a pair bond tight enough to result in conception; it has no real role in making it last.”

This echoed something I told an ex who broke up with me after more than two years together because “we get along too well, you’re too nice to me.” We were compatible intellectually, physically, emotionally — but they said, “I love you, but I’m not in love with you.” When I asked what being in love meant to him, they described a pattern of unreciprocated obsession that lasted “until they blocked my number/stopped speaking to me.” That’s not romance — that’s limerence as compulsion.

Chapter 15 is even titled “I love you but I’m not in love with you,” but instead of exploring the emotional fallout of that statement, it focuses on infidelity and the vulnerability of limerent individuals to extramarital obsession. It’s a missed opportunity to unpack how limerence can sabotage healthy relationships — not because the partner is lacking, but because the limerent person is chasing a feeling that’s unsustainable.

In Chapter 16, Bellamy suggests channeling limerent energy into self-improvement. This reminded me of my ex’s cycles of intense infatuation — not just with people, but with hobbies. He would dive deep into culinary knives and sharpening techniques, then Afro-Cuban drumming, then pottery. These weren’t casual interests; they were full-blown obsessions. I can’t help but see a connection between limerence and adult ADHD — especially the dopamine-driven novelty-seeking, emotional impulsivity, and hyperfocus that characterize both.

Chapter 17 introduces a “recovery mindset,” reminding readers that “limerence is happening in your head” — that it’s the limerent person who makes the object seem special. Bellamy advises readers to “check your instincts,” avoid self-medication, and accept that you can’t “just be friends” with a limerent object. He encourages building a life of purpose, listing traits like honesty, self-awareness, openness to renewal, courage to face discomfort, an internal locus of control, decisiveness, and action orientation.

“Creating a life without limerence... may not be as flashy and exciting as the thrills of limerence, but it is a deeper, more profound contentment. Finding a purpose, a goal you care about, a vision of what your life could be like if you took control of your destiny, shifts you from a state of passive dependency to one of active motivation. Living with purpose means you stop depending on the LO for comfort, stop following their lead, stop letting their behavior dictate your mood.”

This is solid advice — and probably the book’s strongest section — but it comes late and without much psychological depth. Bellamy doesn’t explore how neurodivergence, trauma, or attachment styles might shape limerent behavior. Nor does he offer tools for people who are in relationships with limerents — those of us who are “too nice,” too stable, too real to compete with the fantasy.

In the end, Smitten is readable and occasionally insightful, but it left me wanting more. More research, more nuance, more empathy for the people caught in the wake of limerent obsession. It made me want to revisit Dorothy Tennov’s original work — and to seek out more rigorous writing on the psychology of love, obsession, and neurodivergence.

REVIEW: Smitten by Tom Bellamy

RATING: 2.5-3 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (2 stars)

I just finished The Ministry for the Future, and I have mixed feelings. It’s an ambitious book — sprawling, complex, and clearly the product of deep research and imagination. I applaud Robinson for tackling such a monumental subject: climate collapse and humanity’s response. But despite being lauded as one of the greatest living sci-fi authors, this book didn’t feel like science fiction to me. It’s more speculative policy fiction, with a dash of spy thriller and philosophical musing thrown in.

One of my biggest issues was the structure. The book felt like several overlapping novels crammed into one:

• A climate disaster narrative
• A geopolitical and economic reform manifesto
• A techno-utopian think piece
• A covert ops thriller with black organizations and assassination attempts

Each of these could have been its own compelling story, and I honestly think this would have worked better as a trilogy. The Children of Kali subplot, for example, was fascinating — a morally ambiguous look at eco-terrorism — but it felt underdeveloped in the context of everything else going on.

The short chapters that read like technology riddles or philosophical interludes were, frankly, useless to me. They broke the flow and didn’t add much. I found myself skimming them, wondering why they were included at all.

Then there’s the language. Robinson occasionally uses made-up or obscure terms like “stocktake” instead of “inventory.” Who says “stocktake”? Nobody. That kind of jargon pulled me out of the narrative and made the book feel unnecessarily academic or bureaucratic.

That said, some of the proposed solutions were genuinely intriguing and thought-provoking:

• Seeding clouds for rain or solar cover
• Deploying biological agents to disrupt animal agriculture
• Sabotaging fossil fuel-intensive industries like air travel
• Heavily taxing cement production
• Dismantling dying small towns and converting the land into wildlife preserves
• Reclaiming highways and turning pavement into gravel for use elsewhere

These ideas were bold and imaginative, and I appreciated the effort to think outside the box. But many transitions — like the shift from jet travel to hot air balloons — were glossed over. What were the trade-offs? How did that become viable? Similarly, the book hints at a global population decline but never quantifies it, which weakens the impact of the societal changes Robinson describes.

The Ministry itself is a compelling concept — a UN-adjacent body with moral authority but limited power. But its evolution, and the shadowy black ops subplot, felt like they belonged in a different genre. The espionage elements were gripping but disconnected from the rest of the book’s tone.

Ultimately, The Ministry for the Future is a book I respect more than I enjoyed. It’s full of ideas — some brilliant, some half-baked — and it’s clearly written with urgency and passion. But as a novel, it’s uneven, fragmented, and often frustrating. I’d recommend it to readers deeply interested in climate policy, geoengineering, and speculative futures — but not necessarily to fans of traditional sci-fi or character-driven storytelling.

REVIEW: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

RATING: 2 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.